Spaghetti Pomodoro With Grilled Tempeh

Serves 2 to 4Time: 30 minutes || Active time: 20 minutes

You might have noticed, I have a lot of tomatoes. Maybe you do, too? I want to treat them as respectfully, and of course, as deliciously, as possible. Sometimes it seems the most respectful thing you can do is just slice them up and eat them raw, maybe a sprinkle of salt, leaning against the kitchen counter.

I’m not yet ready to make sauce to can, but all the basil in my garden had me craving a light fresh, saucy pomodoro. Of course, that just means “tomato sauce”, but the difference, at least as I’ve always understood it in Brooklyn, is that a pomodoro sauce is from fresh tomatoes. As a teenager I was fired from enough waitressing jobs in Italian restaurants that I must be qualified as an Italian food expert, so let’s just say I’m right.

Keeping the tomatoes in chunks and then cooking them quickly with some olive oil and lots of garlic, preserves all that garden flavor, and then some. The tomatoes are cooked to release their juice, which reduces just enough to make a pretty orange sauce – the perfect segue to fall. Slurp up forkfuls of this spaghetti while leaning against the counter, for the most authentic experience.

I served this with Garlicky Thyme Tempeh. I would say it serves 4 if you’re including a big salad, but more like 2 if this is all you’re eating and you’ve got an appetite.

I heart tomatoes. I think Pomodoro sauce is truly the one of the finest ways to treat a fresh tomato. Well done! I am excited to get some fresh tomatoes from my garden this week to do exactly this with them!

I only planted one cherry tomato plant this summer. The squirrels loved it! But I did manage to buy some beautiful local tomatoes at a market and WOW did they taste great in this scrumptious sauce. I didn’t have the tempeh side (though it looks delicious), but I did have a triangle-shaped piece of coconut-pineapple cake!

Last year I froze all my tomatoes and will never, ever can another tomato. Freezing works so beautifully!! All I did was wash the tomaatoes, cut them up, and toss them in freezer bags….then into the freezer they went. They were absolutely delicious in all my fresh tomato recipes and tasted like they just came out of the garden…
I’ll be doing that again soon.

Ok I made this last night and this was soooo delicious. Thank you for the awesome recipe, it made for a really romantic dinner for my girlfriend and I. I also made the garlicky tempeh and it was wicked awesome!

I made this last week, and it just might be my most favorite tomato sauce recipe yet; DELICIOUS! I want to make it again this weekend (I love tomato season!) and might want to freeze it if we don’t eat it all in time. Thoughts on this?

Just made this and I’m a bit upset at myself for never giving pomodoro a try before; it’s so simple and healthy to boot. I added a 1/4 cup of white wine, like one of the earlier commentors suggested, and it tastes awesome. I was eating some of cold leftovers that I’d stuck in my fridge for a day and I think it might taste even better than when it was right out of the pan. I have yet to prepare any recipe on this site that failed to be awesome.

I just made this sauce and it was delicious! I only had canned tomatoes on hand and decided to add some chopped up carrots for some extra veg. I poured in on top of some leftover spaghetti squash (with earth balance, basil, salt, and olive oil mixed in) and it was amazing! I ate wayyyy too much.

This was a huge hit with my boyfriend, I also added a little white wine (I would add booze to anything) as a previous reviewer recommended. Loved it! It was super quick and easy and I will definitely make this again.

This recipe is amazing. We have been overrun with tomatoes this summer and have made this twice in the past two weeks. We only minimally ‘tweaked’ the recipe by adding white wine (as suggested by others) and some red pepper flakes. Delicious!

Saw this recipe and it reminded me of my Grandmother. She cooked virtually this exact dish, only she mixed the sauteed tomatoes and garlic with fresh basil and cooked spaghetti, placed it in a casserole dish and baked it. It was served more as a side dish, but boy was it scrumptious. In the winter she used canned tomatoes. Can’t wait til summer to try it your way with fresh tomatoes from the garden.